Ciara:
Fine bahahaha Sophie: JK I REGRET NOTHING
* * *
“Soph?”
“Hm?” I looked up from my phone, closing out of the message thread with Ciara. I had reached the end, but soon I would scroll back to the beginning and read them all again. And again.
“You ready?” Terrance smiled at me.
“For all of that?”
“For the last night of the summer,” he said, and then he struck a pose. “And yes, also, all of this.”
I smiled back. “I am a hundred and ten percent ready.”
* * *
Dash and Terrance’s dad grilled a bunch of stuff for us, and we ate out on the back deck. It was still bright out, but summer-night bright, where there’s that evening slant to the light, the shadows going long.
Brit and August reached for the last brat at the same time. Brit waved a hand. “Go for it.”
August speared it with his fork and transferred it to his plate.
“August Middle Name Shaw, I’m appalled,” Brit said. “You’re supposed to offer it to me too and then I get to refuse it again and feel like the better person. And anyway, I need the protein more than you.”
He smiled, cutting the brat and dropping half on Brit’s plate. “August is actually my middle name.”
“What’s your first name?” Terrance said.
“Christopher.”
“Christopher August,” Brit repeated immediately. “Christopher. Huh.” A slow smile took her face. “What if we called you Topher?”
“Please don’t.”
“No, but like, what if you had gone by Toph instead? What would your life have been like?”
Flora’s eyes brightened. “That’s your Other Acadia name! You’re Toph in Other Acadia!”
“Toph drives a Volvo.”
“Nah.” Dash shook his head. “No way. Toph drives a used Range Rover.”
“Toph plays lacrosse. Second string but he thinks he has a really good shot at starting this year,” Terrance said.
Brit took a large bite of brat and, with her mouth full, contributed: “Toph almost got to third base on the sectional in his girlfriend’s stepdad’s basement the night of homecoming junior year, but the stepdad came home early and the girlfriend made him climb out the basement window.”
Terrance nodded. “He tore his tux pants on the window casing and he got charged for it at the rental place. He and the girlfriend broke up two weeks later for unrelated reasons.”
“This shit is weirdly specific, guys,” August said.
“Toph thinks he’s allergic to citrus fruits.”
“Toph puts sriracha on everything.”
“If I ever met Toph, I would punch him,” Brit said.
“You’d have to get in line,” August replied.
“Toph is doing his best,” Flora said. “I like him.”
Brit gasped. “Flora is Toph’s Other Acadia girlfriend!”
“No, I’m not!”
Terrance gasped too. “You broke up with him after the rental-tux incident!”
“Nooo!” August clutched his chest. “You said it was unrelated!”
Flora extended a hand to me across the table. “You can date August in Other Acadia too, Sophie.”
“Oh gee, may I?”
“I am feeling awfully attacked right now,” August said.
“Welcome to the group,” Brit replied with a grin.
* * *
Brit and I sat on the deck steps after dinner, while Flora and the guys threw a ball around. August was stationed in one of the plastic chairs from Teen Zone 2, trying valiantly not to pitch backward as he reached for one-handed catches. He managed to stay upright but had missed all of them so far.
“So is it official?” I said. “Are we adding August to the chat?”
“On a trial basis,” she replied. “He posts one bad meme, he’s out.”
“Who decides what’s a good meme and bad meme?”
“Me, obviously.”
“Oh, obviously.”
Brit smiled.
It was the same kind of smile she would eventually shoot me that autumn when Chelsea Peters reprised her ukulele rendition of “Steel Highway” at the fall festival’s Megan Pleasant contest. Megan wouldn’t be in attendance. Chelsea wouldn’t win, either, but both outcomes were okay.
We wouldn’t entirely fill in the Rose Parade fundraising thermometer by November, but we’d be close. With the various efforts of the booster committee, the anonymous donor’s contribution wouldn’t be huge.
Pasadena would be beautiful. The “Sounds of the ’60s” medley would be a hit, and my mom would proudly post screenshots from the two and a half seconds when you could see me in a wide shot on the TV broadcast.
August wouldn’t end up joining band. But he’d send me a picture of Cady and Harper sitting in front of the television, watching the parade. He would share the screenshots my mom posted, adding an embarrassing number of emojis and exclamation points. When we got back to Acadia, he’d ask all about it, every step of the way, even though I had been updating him throughout.
It’s different hearing it in person.
How’s that?
I can do this, he’d say, and kiss me.
Yeah, but, like, don’t do that too often, or I’ll never get through it all, I’d reply with a grin.
It would always be easy to lose track of time when I was kissing him.
He would visit his mom, eventually. With Kyle, and without him. With me too.
But right now, in the Cunninghams’ backyard, all of that was unknown. Right now, Brit just looked at me, eyes shining as she said, “I have a question for you.”
“Go for it.”
She leaned in, dropping down to a whisper: “Where will you spend eternity?”
I grinned up at the sky, the sun dipping below the trees.
“I don’t know where, but I know how.”
“Hm?”
“How I’ll spend it.”
“And how’s that?”
“Loving you guys,” I said, taking her hand and giving it a squeeze.
“I hate that you said that,” Brit murmured, and squeezed back.?